In-Store Music in Italy

The ever-increasing presence of music within the spaces of daily life has been flanked by a renewed interest for its capacity for structuring experience and action (DeNora, 2000). Public places for shopping and consumption have represented a privileged setting for these studies due to their increasingly common and targeted use of music. Several studies have highlighted the relevance of music in configuring shopping and consumption experiences, while subjects, interests, practices, and criteria accounting for both the selection of music and its specific use have been less investigated. This article combines the “production of culture” and “culture of production” perspectives (du Gay, 1997; Peterson and Anand, 2004) in order to address such issues in the Italian context, where in-store music playing relies more and more on in-store radio companies providing ad hoc services for brands and retailers. Through reference to interviews with managers and music supervisors, the article shows how music selections depend not only on marketing strategies by the brands but also on the business interest of in-store radio services as well as on employee feedback, sometimes resulting in contradictory choices for different functions. As a result, Italian music tends to be strongly penalized by the selection criteria generally applied.